1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an attachment system for lift trucks.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
Forklift attachments for top cap handling of major household appliances from a carton cap are widely used in industrial warehouses.
The front of the attachment exhibits flat pusher plates to come in contact with the cartons when lifting the appliance. The flat pusher plates provide a flat composite coplanar surface. The pusher plates have a flat surface and the surfaces of the pusher plates are aligned to be disposed in a plane. An extreme left hand pusher plate and an extreme right hand pusher plate are necessary to provide support for the loads to be carried. However, the left most plate and the right most plate often are subject to colliding with railroad car walls, truck trailer interiors and warehouse columns, etc. Because of the rigidity of the extremely disposed pusher plates such collisions damage not only the pusher plates involved, but also cause extended damage to the forklift attachment and such collisions engender major repairs and are a cause for substantial downtime of the whole forklift.
An attachment for fork lift trucks is taught by Marino in U.S. Pat. No. 5,230,600. A lift truck attachment for handling loads comprises a main frame assembly for attachment to an elevator of a lift truck and a lower slide assembly. A first channel member is associated with a first main frame vertical tube and disposed in an upright position. A second channel member is associated with a second main frame vertical tube and disposed substantially parallel to the first channel member. Upper closing members with center bores are attached to upper ends of the main frame vertical tubes and of lower sliding tubes. Lower sliding tubes are slidingly disposed in the main frame vertical tubes. First and second end members are attached at upper ends of first and second bolts. Third and fourth end members are attached at lower ends of first and second bolts. The first and second bolts pass through the center bores. The closing members are disposed between the first and third end members and between the second and fourth end members, respectively.
It is a general object of this invention to provide an improved attachment for fork lifts.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved and sturdy attachment for a lift truck.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an attachment structure for a lift truck, which is reliable and minimizes possibilities of serious damage during frequently rough operations of such lift truck.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an attachment for a lift truck which can be easily maintained and serviced at an economic cost.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an attachment for fork lift construction which is easier serviceable.
It is a further object of the present invention to present an attachment for fork lifts constructs such as to be less subject to serious damage.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to furnish outermost plates of an attachment system to fork lift trucks such as to prevent shearing forces exerted on the outermost plates to exceed a permissible limit of force exerted thereby on the attachment frame.
It is yet another an object of the invention to provide for plates to be fail-safe attached to the attachment element of a lift truck to avoid serious damage caused by collisions with other lift trucks.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system of attaching and of fastening outermost pusher plates in a sufficiently rigid manner to survive when subjected to normal usage of the attachment, but to yield appropriately.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become evident from the description which follows.
According to the present invention there is provided for a lift truck attachment having breakaway wings for handling loads.
The present invention provides a system of attaching and of fastening outermost pusher plates in a sufficiently rigid manner to survive when subjected to normal usage of the attachment, but to break away when encountering unusual forces such as during a collision between an outermost pusher plate and some static object generating substantial resistance force opposed to a motion of an outermost pusher plate.
Such breakaway feature acts to prevent an original force or an external force from being transmitted to the main frame of the forklift attachment. Thus such breakaway feature prevents the possibility of damage to the forklift equipment and avoids costly repairs to the forklift attachment.
The novel features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, both as to its construction and its method of operation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.